This is just as the team of lawyers defending Tinubu has called on the court to dismiss the suit.
He argued that the court lacked the jurisdiction to entertain a suit he said constitutes a gross abuse of the judicial process.
Part of his argument was that the statutory period for filing such a pre-election matter had since elapsed.
However, Justice Iyang Ekwo has fixed November 20 to rule on a motion the plaintiffs filed seeking leave to amend the Originating Summons.
Specifically, the plaintiffs, in the motion filed by their lawyer, Mr. Silas Onu, are praying the court to permit them to change the name of the INEC form to which President Tinubu allegedly attached the forged certificates, which was wrongly referred to as Form CF0001 instead of Form EC9.
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Aside from President Tinubu, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and INEC, listed as 1st to 3rd defendants respectively in the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1888/2026, opposed the plaintiffs’ bid to amend the action.
While President Tinubu accused Atiku and the ADC of attempting to use the guise of an amendment to file a new action against him, the APC, through its lawyer, Chief Akin Olujinmi, SAN, drew the court’s attention to a counter-affidavit it filed on September 12 to challenge the plaintiffs’ motion for an amendment.
Also, INEC’s legal team, led by Dr. Alex Iziyon, SAN, urged the court to dismiss the motion the plaintiffs filed on September 8.
The electoral body, in a counter-affidavit deposed to by an Administrative Officer in its Litigation and Prosecution Department, Ayuba Mohammed, argued that the suit lacked merit.
It insisted that the suit failed to disclose any reasonable cause of action and therefore ought to be dismissed in its entirety.
According to INEC, Atiku lacked the locus standi (legal right) to institute the action, insisting that the issues raised in the suit were hypothetical and academic.
Although INEC did not speak to the authenticity or otherwise of President Tinubu’s educational credentials, it told the court that, as the electoral umpire, it neither nominates candidates for political parties nor originates, manufactures, or procures personal certificates or credentials submitted by candidates or the political parties sponsoring them.
Atiku had, in a 25-paragraph affidavit he personally deposed to in support of the suit, alleged that President Tinubu submitted a bogus National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) discharge certificate to INEC in support of his qualification for the presidential seat.
Insisting that President Tinubu gave false information about himself in the Form CF0001 he tendered before INEC, the plaintiffs drew the court’s attention to the fact that the NYSC certificate he submitted to the electoral body bears the name “Tinubu Bola Adekunle.”
“I know that the NYSC certificate is clearly not one obtained by the 1st defendant, as it belongs to one Adekunle.
“The said NYSC certificate, bearing the name Tinubu Bola Adekunle, is herein attached and marked as Exhibit P2.
“I know that the said NYSC certificate is still in existence and in the custody of the 3rd defendant (INEC), and that it is a forgery, as the 1st defendant’s name is not Adekunle, and yet he submitted it to the 3rd defendant to be acted upon as genuine,” Atiku averred.
He told the court that Tinubu had been parading the forged certificate since 1999, when he contested the Lagos State governorship election.
Atiku therefore urged the court, among other things, to determine: “Whether, in view of the limitations in section 138(1)(a) & (b) of the Electoral Act, 2026, and section 285(14)(c) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (As Amended), the Plaintiffs will not be allowed to enforce the binding provision of section 137(1)(j) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (As Amended), which applies, mutatis mutandis, to all candidates aspiring to the office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
He also asked the court to determine: “Whether the 1st and 2nd Defendants should be disqualified for presenting a forged NYSC certificate to the 3rd Defendant for the 2023 and 2027 Presidential Elections, in breach of section 137(1)(j) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (As Amended).”
